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Earlier this month, I moderated a panel at Forbes about how cities are harnessing data to improve their services. That data can come from anywhere: from citizens themselves, from sensors around the city, from cars, from smartphones, from Facebook, from Twitter, from city databanks... With more data about how cities run at our fingertips, we're entering the era of the "Smart City." The fact that I can check my phone and know exactly when the next bus is arriving at a nearby stop (thanks to NextBus) is the beginning of this, and it will only (hopefully) grow more sophisticated. Sensors in a building could send instructions to my phone in case of a fire to tell me the best exit out, and then ping traffic lights to change to ensure the fastest route for a coming firetruck.

That is the rosy future. Balancing that are concerns by those crafting new services about who gets access to databases and who makes the decisions about how the data gets used. A report from the Institute of the Future called this the "battle for the soul of the Smart City." Moreover, there are concerns, especially from privacy advocates, about the ramifications of cities knowing more about their citizens and exactly who, how, and when people are moving through and interacting with their cities.

We tackled these topics in a free-ranging hour-long discussion that was the first in a series of "Data-Driven" events sponsored by IBM. The panel's speakers included Rod Smith of IBM, Laura Kurgan of Columbia University, and Adam Greenfield of consulting firm Urbanscale. We talked about a number of case studies, and how studies of data can lead to unexpected outcomes: how Atlanta changed HOV lanes into High-Toll Lanes after a study of traffic congestion data led it to realize that the HOV lane was under-utilized: how crime maps intended to help law enforcement distribute resources help the insurance industry set insurance rates; and how cameras installed to monitor traffic in New Zealand were upgraded with facial recognition capabilities and then used to monitor crime:

[forbesvid id="fvn/data-driven-11/data-cities-love" showid="5"]

We also, of course, spent some time discussing privacy issues, such as users being careful in what they share and companies and cities embracing "privacy by design" in the data collection they do.

In the next video, Adam Greenfield mentions academic Latanya Sweeney, who has shown again and again how data thought to be anonymous becomes much less anonymous when subjected to creative analysis. Her latest came out today, suggesting that de-identified prescription data -- which marketing companies have access to, a right recently affirmed by the Supreme Court -- contains rich enough details -- including your age and gender, doctor’s name, diagnosis, and the time and place where you picked it up -- that the name of the pill popper could be determined by mashing the data up with other public records. How can cities steer clear of privacy issues when they go data dumpster diving?